Great Violinists And Pianists eBook

That such a man as this, brilliant in wit, extravagant
in habit and opinion, courted for his personal fascination
by every one greatest in rank and choicest in intellect
from his prodigious youth to his ripe manhood, should
suddenly cease from display at the moment when his
popularity was at its highest, when no rival was in
being, is a remarkable trait in Dr. Franz Liszt’s
remarkable life. But this he did in 1849, by
settling in Weimar as conductor of the court theatre,
his age then being thirty-eight years.

V.

Liszt closed his career as a virtuoso, and accepted
a permanent engagement at Weimar, with the distinct
purpose of becoming identified with the new school
of music which was beginning to express itself so
remarkably through Richard Wagner. His new position
enabled him to bring works before the world which
would otherwise have had but little chance of seeing
the light of day, and he rapidly produced at brief
intervals eleven works, either for the first time,
or else revived from what had seemed a dead failure.
Among these works were “Lohengrin,” “Rienzi,”
and “Tannhauser” by Wagner, “Benvenuto
Cellini” by Berlioz, and Schumann’s “Genoveva,”
and music to Byron’s “Manfred.”
Liszt’s new departure and the extraordinary
band of artists he drew around him attracted the attention
of the world of music, and Weimar became a great musical
center, even as in the days of Goethe it had been a
visiting shrine for the literary pilgrims of Europe.
Thus a nucleus of bold and enthusiastic musicians
was formed whose mission it was to preach the gospel
of the new musical faith.

Richard Wagner says that, after the revolution of
1849, when he was compelled to fly for his life, he
was thoroughly disheartened as an artist, and that
all thought of musical creativeness was dead within
him. From this stagnation he was rescued by a
friend, and that friend was Franz Liszt. Let
us tell the story in Wagner’s own words:

“I met Liszt for the first time during my earliest
stay in Paris, at a period when I had renounced the
hope, nay, even a wish of a Paris reputation, and,
indeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the
artistic life which I found there. At our meeting
he struck me as the most perfect contrast to my own
being and situation. In this world into which
it had been my desire to fly from my narrow circumstances,
Liszt had grown up from his earliest age so as to
be the object of general love and admiration at a
time when I was repulsed by general coldness and want
of sympathy. In consequence, I looked upon him
with suspicion. I had no opportunity of disclosing
my being and working to him, and therefore the reception
I met with on his part was of a superficial kind,
as was indeed natural in a man to whom every day the
most divergent impressions claimed access. But
I was not in a mood to look with unprejudiced eyes
for the natural cause of this behavior, which, though